Students and teachers have started a new school year, hopefully fresh and recharged from a restful and enjoyable summer break. Teaching and learning are continuously changing, however, and we must be aware of the challenges, some of them new and some renewed, that the education community faces.
Today’s students are “digital natives” — they have always lived in a world where the Internet and smartphones are with them at every moment. This has changed the educational environment and atmosphere, at least in two important ways. First, students now have access to almost all information (if not knowledge) at the tips of their fingers, just a few clicks, taps or swipes away. And, secondly, information and messages are received with such high frequency that students nowadays can no longer set things aside and focus on a mental task (reading, thinking, writing, imagining) for more than a few minutes. This has forced teachers to adjust and adapt to this new reality, mainly by integrating digital technologies into their educational strategies, but also by redesigning the learning environment and timeline to take the short attention span into account.
Indeed, many aspects of the learning process have become digital, including: Online platforms where teachers post learning material and assignments as well as interact (virtually) with the students; textbooks that are fast becoming e-books, with both benefits (interactive material, accessibility from anywhere, etc.) and drawbacks (easy to get distracted when reading on screen); and examination procedures that must take digital technologies into account (to try to prevent students from cheating).
Last month, during the student-led Research and Innovation Summit in Jordan, I took part in a session on educational technology. One of the panelists asked the audience to take an online survey on the topic; 140 people responded and the results were interesting. Most notably, the students were asked to rank the various factors that help them learn better, and their No. 1 choice was “the style of the instructor and how he/she gets ideas across.” The next most important factors, according to the students, were: Conducting a project in the course; knowing why something is being studied; and summarizing the main information at the end of each lecture. Interestingly, much less important for the students was the availability of videos and online material.
Indeed, students are now beginning to realize that the digital availability of information does not automatically translate into easy and quick learning — the teacher is still the main agent in imparting knowledge or, better yet, in helping the student learn.
The main reason for cheating is the unbearable parental and social pressures that force students to get high grades
Nidhal Guessoum
On the other hand, in a recent forum, teachers discussed the biggest challenges they face today in carrying out their educational mission. One issue was “keeping up with the technology,” but the biggest problem the teachers discussed, and with quite a bit of ardor, if not rage, was cheating. Indeed, cheating has taken on novel forms thanks to the digital tools that are now available. Internet (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) and camera-equipped smartphones have made accessing material online and communicating with others — inside and outside the examination room — so much easier and harder to monitor. Of course, the old tricks (tiny cheat papers, writing on arms and legs, signaling to others, etc.) are still widely used. Thus it seems like an endless chase between instructors and exam-taking students: New technology brings new tricks, which require new prevention procedures, which will soon be overcome by new technology, and so on. However, the more important question that was then discussed was: Why do so many students cheat and how to address that core reason?
Through countless conversations with students, we educators have come to realize that the main reason for cheating is the unbearable parental and social pressures that force students to get high grades, by hook or by crook. Parents rarely focus on the educational and character development and growth of their kids — they pay almost exclusive attention to grades. And society (through awards and good jobs) looks primarily at a person’s transcript, which is the list of courses taken and grades obtained by a candidate. Their deeper knowledge, personality and outlook on life only count secondarily, if at all.
All this pushes students to try to get those high grades by any means. They often recognize that those ways are immoral; sometimes they also realize that they are detrimental to them in the long run. But, as cheating becomes ubiquitous, it loses its conscience-disturbing characteristic; it becomes “normal” in the minds of the youngsters.
We educators, parents and social influencers must work together to change the above emphasis on grades and short-term “achievements.” We must encourage students to seek learning and personal growth as a longer-term objective. And we must nurture an understanding of the larger and deeper philosophy of education, where grades and transcripts are only a limited record of one’s schooling.
Education is fast evolving, mainly due to the growing dominance of digital technologies. With that, new or renewed challenges have appeared, for teachers in particular. The whole community, including parents, the media and opinion makers, must work together to make sure that education performs its vital task as well as possible for the benefit of society.
- Nidhal Guessoum is a professor of physics and astronomy at the American University of Sharjah, UAE. Twitter: @NidhalGuessoum
